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Thursday, February 5, 2015

Employee Sentenced to 20 Years for Stealing From Modspace Modular in PA

Joyce Lynn Hawkins

The West Goshen, PA woman who
treated the company that employed her as her “personal piggy bank” — stealing
more than $1 million from it while being paid an annual salary of $200,000 and
indirectly costing dozens of fellow employees their jobs — was sentenced to
state prison on theft charges Tuesday.

Common Pleas Judge William P. Mahon, at the conclusion of a two-hour sentencing
proceeding during which he raised questions about the defendant’s attempt to
pay back the money she stole, sentenced Joyce Lynn Hawkins of 80 to 240 months
in state prison, plus five years’ consecutive probation.

Mahon, who had
warned Hawkins when she pleaded guilty to the charges against her in October
that his ultimate sentence would depend in part of her restitution efforts,
ordered her to repay $1,038,183 to ModSpace, the Tredyffrin company where she
worked as director of employee benefits and compensation.

The amount of prison time came close to what the prosecution had asked Mahon to impose.
Assistant District Attorney Anthony Rock, who prosecuted the case and called
Hawkins’ crimes “unabated greed,” said his office was “very pleased” with
Mahon’s decision to send Hawkins to state prison, rather than sentence her to a
jail term in Chester County Prison, as Hawkins’ attorney had urged.

A spokesman for ModSpace who attended the hearing before Mahon
in the countyJusticeCenter, pronounced the company
gratified with Mahon’s
handling of the case.

“We are satisfied that justice has been done,” said James Sheets, the company’s
vice president and general counsel, outside the courtroom after Hawkins had
been led out in handcuffs by sheriff’s deputies.

“For Joyce and people like her, this is a good message that they have to suffer
the consequences of their actions,” said Sheets, who was accompanied by other
ModSpace employees at the proceeding.

One of those, Ellen Edmonds, who discovered the thefts and conducted an
in-house investigation of Hawkins’ role in them, told Mahon that even though
Hawkins had long ago stopped working at the company, her crimes still had an
impact on the everyday life of the firm.

In the period of time when Hawkins’ thefts were at their peak, the company —
which makes modular structures — was forced to lay off about 100 workers.

“Some of those employees could have kept their jobs were it
not for Joyce’s thefts,” Edmonds
said.

For her part, Hawkins offered a tearful apology, and begged Mahon to show her leniency.

“I am ashamed of my behavior, and take full responsibility for my actions,”
said Hawkins, standing before the judge, dressed in a conservative black pants
suit and reading from a prepared statement.

“I am truly remorseful, and am sorry for the harm I have caused others,” the
60-year-old said. “I can only hope I can be forgiven by those who truly know
me. I will never forgive myself.”

But Mahon, in his inquisition of Hawkins and her attorney, James Munnelly of
West Chester, suggested that she had not done all that she could have to make
ModSpace whole from her thefts. Munnelly turned over two checks totaling about
$133,000 to the court as partial payment, and bank accounts in Hawkins names
with about $220,000 had already been frozen. But that still left well over
$600,000 in restitution outstanding, he said.

Hawkins had switched title to her West Goshen home to her husband shortly after
her arrest, and had not attempted to sell either it or a property the couple
own on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland
that she has used part of what she stole to purchase.

“When a financial crime is of this magnitude,” Mahon told Hawkins, “restitution talks and
the rest walks.”

Hawkins’ case was investigated by Chester County Detective Thomas Goggin, who
last week was named 2014 Detective of the Year in part for his work on Hawkins’
case.

Goggin’s efforts revealed that Hawkins had engaged in “thousands” of
transactions with a fictitious accounts for a health care company called Caring
Hearts she had opened at WSFS Bank. The Caring Hearts company sent dozens of
invoices to ModSpace for employee benefits, all of which were approved by
Hawkins. She wrote checks to herself on the account, or made out to cash. She
transferred thousands of dollars between the Caring Hearts account and her
personal checking account.

More than that, she paid for personal expenses using the Caring Hearts account,
including weekly grocery and restaurant purchases; $20,000 in jewelry buys;
more than $10,000 in home improvement projects; mortgage payments on her two
homes — one overlooking the Mill Creek in Chesterton, Md., where she kept two
boats — and about $35,000 to an Elkton, Md., environmental firm to help dredge
the creek at her $546,000 Maryland home.

Goggin found that Hawkins was being paid $200,000 a year. And while she was
stealing thousands from the company, she also fraudulently awarded herself
bonus points in a company-based rewards program that allowed her to make an
$869 purchase of a flat-screen television.